Call for Mail Art: Weird (existing) Animals!
Platypus, Tapir, Okapi, Echidna, Mole, Axolotl are some of my favourite animals. They have in common that they exist irl and that they are uncommon.
Which animal do you think odd?
Send your image of an unusual (existing, no fantasy) animal.
All media are welcomed, preferable postcard size (10x15 cms), maximum A4 (20x30 cms).
No jury, no fee, no return.
All weird existing animals will be published in this ongoing virtual exhibition.

maandag 31 maart 2014

I always am very happy when receiving mail art. However sometimes it isn't easy to find out who has sent it. Which is both a nice puzzle and frustrating :-)
Sometimes I never get to know who the creator / sender is, and sometimes there is doubt.
The latter is concerning this beautiful rubberstamp-drawn-written piece of mail art, of which it took me three days to try to find more info about the sender. And still in doubt.

Is it from Planer (who is Planer)? Is it from Vladimir Tolstov? Do I read well that the first name of the drawing artist is Evrika? Evrika Junglle??
The stamp reveals (viva los postage stamps!) that it has been sent from Russia, so probably not sent by the one who added an artistamp and suitable postage stamp, A. Moreno.
While 'Prolaventa' combined with Maya (see below) reminds us of Evrika Junglle.

Enough about question marks. Let's start to enjoy the mail art! Probably not meant for this mail art project, there are so many great animals shown that this mail art needs to be shown here. too.
The interesting drawing above. Alas I don't speak Russian, but this round-mouthed person seems to say 'ОПЯТЬ ДЫРЫ!?', and according to online translators this means 'Another hole!?'! Good work by the Rodent.
The human being is shown both on the artistamp and the postage stamp, and see the Mail Turtle rubber stamp, the Turtle hard working delivering snail turtle mail!

Great rubberstamp prints on the back of the envelope, too. The Kangaroo, an extraordinary Marsupial from Australia, and a Jaguar, I think it is, from the fact that this dotted Feline is located close to the word Jungl(l)e.

Nice combination of visual poetry and collage. Showing animals who usually seem to be common, to us. But in fact they're great - and weird!
The striped zebra, the long nose of the elephant, and whoever would wear branches on his head?! And see how pinguins resemble humans.

Tiziana has an interesting mail art project, dedicated to the late Italian mail artist Guglielmo Achille Cavellini. This year it's 100 years ago that he was born.
For more information about the C.A.G. mail art project, see here.

This unidentified Real Weird Animal I received from Pietro Romano Matarrese from Italy.
He created it in a wonderful way: by lemon juice on paper.
And also sent it in a extraordinary way: already framed, ready to be put on the wall!
The glass was a little harmed by the travel through the mail, but despite of the little edge broken, it arrived surprisingly well.

Pietro Romano Matarrese is a multi-artist. Both painter and professor/teacher, musician and composer. You can find more information about Pietro in his biography.

Sent for Real Weird Animals by Klaus Pinter from Austria.
At first sight these footsteps remind me of a dancing human being (or two). And while dancing is a very normal natural phenomenon(see for instance dancing grebes here, and dancing starlings here), it is more and more wellknown that human beings are weird animals, too.

maandag 17 maart 2014

Mail Art from the great collage mail artist Erni Bär from Germany.
When I got the envelope in hands, I first thought he had sent me a Hippopotamus. But it appeared to be a Single Ant.
As I like all animals, this cute - very, very tiny in this mail art, in fact almost invisible - animal is most welcome, too!

Around the Single Ant we can see lots of humans, and also fish, so no-one needs to be single nor lonely.

And three strong men are supporting the Mail Artist himself.
The other artist is Kurt Schwitters (whose first name contains the two letters of his sonate), his portrait is pictured as a great rubber stamp print, which doesn't need any support (?).

vrijdag 14 maart 2014

Beautiful water colour painting of the Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii) by Stripygoose!
See the fine drawn blue feet, and the selfconfident gaze. Thank you very much, Stripygoose!!

Stripygoose is doing a project: draw a bird every day during 365 days. And you can join creating birds and send them to Stripygoose! I did, see here.
Today I was the lucky receiver of this Real Stripygoose Art Bird!

On the backside Stripygoose explains where the name 'Blue-footed Booby' comes from. In Dutch, however, this Booby isn't called 'blue-footed fool', but 'blauwvoetgent' (blue-footed gent').
According to the wiki about this Booby's northern cousin, the Dutch word 'gent' seems to originate from the English word 'gander', which later changed into 'gannet', and the Dutch word 'gent', which resembles the Dutch word for 'goose' (namely 'gans').

Received from Antonia Mayol Castelló, this beautiful collage. It shows the picture of the announcement of the mail art exhibition 'Caminos de Agua' - 'Paths of Water', and some of the contributions. You can see how many animals (including humans) are dependent of water!

And the envelope brightens my day, too, by these wonderful rubber stamp prints of two other nice weird animals: the Horse, and the Mail Snail!
And of course there's the official stamp of the United Queendom of Retailia.

Over mij

Click on the profile link below to see my three ongoing mail art projects:
Real Weird Animals,
Your Doctor in Mail Art, and
Our Solitudes.
Would you like to join? Mail me at heleen21artmail at yahoo dot com or see in the oldest messages for the snail mail address to send your work to. Thank you very much in advance!